May Day marches, rallies do little to disrupt work day in Loop

Rhodes said the group brought 40 to 50 members today and they also plan to demonstrate on the NATO weekend at both the May 18 march organized by the California Nurses Association and the anti-war march on May 20.

As rain fell around 1:30 p.m., hundreds of May Day demonstrators left Union Park and headed downtown toward Federal Plaza.

McCarthy watched from a vantage point under a tree on the parkway at Washington and Ogden. As the march progressed, numerous police officers walked along the edges of the demonstration, maintaining a visible but low-profile presence in their normal blue-shirt duty uniforms.

As the march progressed, numerous police officers walked along the edges of the demonstration, maintaining a visible but low-profile presence in their normal blue-shirt duty uniforms.

Three to four bicycle officers stretched across each side street intersection to ensure the march did not splinter. And at times as marchers spilled on to the sidewalks police directed them back onto the street.

Early in the march someone lit firecrackers in the crowd. Some officers peered into the crowd but police did not seem concerned.

Closer to federal plaza, several trailers of police horses and their officer riders were standing by for crowd control.

As the march passed a Chase bank branch along Washington Street, protesters started chanting obscenities about JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon.

As the march crossed a ramp leading to Interstate 90-94, police tried but failed to halt marchers for traffic backed up on the off ramp. A few trucks on the highway honked as the march went by.

Some in the crowd are trying out an obscene chant, "Chicago to Greece, (blank) the police."

As the crowd chanted, some demonstrators turned to Tobias and said "it's not personal" and "it's systemic, it's not you".

Tobias shrugged and bantered a bit with the marchers, asking one of them what would happen if there were no police. One of the marchers who apologized replied, "it would be really bad."

As demonstrators closed in on Federal Plaza, police on horseback joined the front of the march. Adams and then Dearborn streets were closed as police worked to funnel the marchers toward the plaza.

While some demonstrators shouted "free the horses," one police supervisor walking backward at the head of the march was tapped on the shoulder by a demonstrator who pointed out he was about to step in a large pile left by one of the horses. The officer thanked the man.

The Dirksen U. S. Courthouse remained open with people coming and going.

Dozens of protesters were already gathered in the area ahead of the march, some chanted "Hey hey, ho-ho, Rahm Emanuel's got to go."

Dori Ewing said she was there to protest the mayor's treatment of unions, primarily the teachers' union. She's not a teacher but has friends in a number of unions.

"If they mess with the teachers' union what's going to stop them from messing with the rest of them. Without unions there would be no middle class," Ewing said.

After a series of pro-labor speeches, the crowd at Federal Plaza began to disperse before the afternoon rush hour hit full swing. "See you next year," one of the last speakers said as the remnants of the crowd scattered in different directions.